Slime Read Online Free PDF

older than twenty, and with a pimply face. ‘Just stand aside, miss,’ he said briefly. He bent over Arthur, took hold of the jellyfish in his gauntleted hands and peeled it off. ‘Stand clear, will you!’ He took it to the edge of the harbour wall and dropped it back in the water.
    Arthur’s cheeks were a mess of red, raw flesh, as though someone had drawn a steel comb across them, cutting in deeply. Miraculously he was still alive, though groaning desperately through lacerated lips as the policeman tugged the second jellyfish away from his fist, which had very little trace of skin left on it.
    ‘Right, give him air! Stand back now!’
    He was doing everything by the book, that young policeman, though his face was by now as pale as his own white helmet. But that’s the way it had to be, Tim approved as he stood there watching with the waterdripping from him. His left arm was now completely numb, but he didn’t give it another thought; he was only too glad he’d managed to get them both out alive.
    Jane turned away from the injured man to come over to him; then she screamed.
    ‘Tim – your hand! No, don’t touch it!’
    He looked down, shocked. Cosily wrapped around his hand, like a pink luminescent mitten, was another jellyfish.
    ‘Just leave it, sir! I’ll get it.’
    But before the policeman could touch it, Tim had already grasped the jellyfish with his right hand, digging his nails in as he tried to tug it away. The tentacles held on fast, but then they suddenly released their grip; he just missed being stung again as they waved dangerously near him.
    ‘Bloody hell!’
    He dropped it on to the stones, standing back quickly in case it attacked his feet through the wet socks. It was a wise move. With a snort of revulsion, Jane began to stamp on it; immediately, the tentacles tried to close around her boots. She recoiled, her eyes wide with horror.
    ‘Oh, Tim…’ she whispered, pressing against him as she stared at the jellyfish which had seemed so still and lifeless when nothing was within its reach. ‘Oh, Tim, what can it be?’
    His hand was a mass of blood which dripped on to his wet clothes, but it was still numb. The poison was so effective that he could not even raise his arm to take a real look at it.
    The policeman found a boathook and hastily pushed the jellyfish back into the water. ‘Better out of the way, those things. Never did like them. Good God, look at that!’
    A green slime covered the black leather fingers of hisgauntlet gloves, and it was gleaming like rock-star glitter make-up. As they all stared at it, the sound of the ambulance siren was heard, coming closer.

5
    Much against Tim’s will they insisted on him staying in hospital overnight in order to keep an eye on him. The treatment of his hand had been painful. The numbness in his left arm from the jellyfish’s natural anaesthetic gradually ebbed away while the nurse was still picking out those sharp needle-like hairs which the tentacles had deposited in his exposed flesh. Every touch of the tweezers hurt like hell and his whole arm throbbed violently.
    ‘Just have to wait an’ see now, won’t we?’ The ageing Welsh doctor shook his head doubtfully, his eyes intense beneath his white bushy eyebrows. ‘Jellyfish, you say?’
    To round off the treatment, they made him drop his hospital pyjamas while they rammed an injection into his backside. It left a sore spot which troubled him whichever way he tried to lie in that narrow, clinical bed.
    The room was pleasant, though. It had off-white walls, a carpet on the floor, flowered curtains and a view across the bay. By late afternoon the clouds had dispersed sufficiently to allow a weak sun to penetrate; it coated the brooding sea with silver. Gazing at it, Tim wondered how many more pink jellyfish were swimming around out there. He remembered how helpless the thug had been, simply floating, paralysed, unable to defend himself against that thing over his face. It did not take long